I'm so, so sorry. Please don't kill me?
I'm really sorry it took me so ridiculously long to update the story. The reason is very simple, but I know it's not a sufficient excuse: work. I'm currently working my behind off to earn money for a year abroad. The last time I actually had time to write something was more than three weeks ago.
Hopefully you can forgive me. And as always: enjoy reading!

This Category Is Better Than Its Title, I swear!

(I can't believe you still haven't stopped reading this guide, my dear reader. I'm so proud of you.)

Now that you know what to keep in mind for the orthographic appeal of your story, my dear reader, let's have a look at the crucial point of every story. The summary.

The summary is one of the most important components of a story, because it's the summary that has to convince the readers that your story is not a piece of junk and actually worth their time. It is therefore very important to give a considerable amount of thought to the composition of your own summary.

The summaries are as varied as the stories they belong to. (Which means very, for the intellectually challenged amongst us.) There is no foolproof recipe for a good summary, but there are a few things you just shouldn't write in a summary.

Things You Shouldn't Do in a Summary

"How to Write a Merlin Fanfiction, a Very Helpful and Only Slightly Sarcastic Guideline" is a satirical guideline for FanFiction authors. It addresses things like the genres, the characters, the pairings, proper spelling, abbreviations and pairings. It's very funny and sarcastic and half of the text is crossed out because it makes the guide look cooler and I can pretend to feel guilty about using so many swearwords."

Brevity.

The summary is a brief description of your story. BRIEF. That means one or two sentences, not a whole essay. (Just take a look at my summaries, that's how you shouldn't do it.)

"What it says in the title."

Brevity 2.0.

Not THAT brief, idiot!

"Crack!fic, gen, humour, DLDR. R&R. IDOM. :)"

Abbreviations.

Don't use abbreviations in your summary. Nobody will read your story if they get the feeling that it has less text than pointless capital letters.

Also: Disclaimer.

Don't write the disclaimer into your summary! Or have you ever seen a book summary that contains the sentence "The paper on which this story is printed does not belong to the author"?

"This is my first fanfiction, please be kind."

First time.

Again, not something you should mention in the summary. Use footnotes or say it at the very beginning of your story. Also: mentioning that it's your first attempt doesn't get you more reviews, nor does it increase the "Oh god, you write such awesome stories" bootlicking. It gets you more constructive criticism. Just saying.

"The story is better than the summary, I swear."

"I'm not good at writing summaries."

Sugarcoating.

If you can't write a summary, use an excerpt! Or a subtitle! Or write in a language nobody can read! Anything! Anything at all! But don't say that your summary sucks! (Yes, this level of stupidity deserves three exclamation marks.) If you tell your readers that you can't even summarise your own story, why would they think that the story itself is any better!?

"If you can't write a summary, use an excerpt! Or a subtitle! Or write in a language nobody can read! Anything! Anything at all! But don't say that your summary sucks! If you tell your readers that you can't even summarise your own story, why would they think that the story itself is any better!?"

Excerpts.

If you use an excerpt instead of a description, use it wisely. It should A) actually appear somewhere in the story, B) appear verbatim and without any typos in the story, C) be informative about the content of the story and D) not contain spoilers for the end of the story. (Oh my god, I just wrote something informative! What's wrong with me?)

And don't use an excerpt if your story is a drabble. One sentence already is about 10% of the whole thing!

"Please leave a review!"

"Everyone who writes a review gets a cookie!"

Begging.

Never beg for reviews. Instead of achieving the desired effect (i.e. more reviews), it makes you look desperate for positive feedback, which in turn makes the reader wonder just how terrible the story has to be that its author needs to remind the readers to leave any feedback at all.
(And if I STILL have any readers left after this category, I may start to cry tears of joy.)

Dark!Light!Left!Right!That-Rhymed!

Another stupid but nevertheless important topic are the '!-labels'.

"What on earth is a '!-label'?" you might ask yourself now, my dear reader. And that is a good question! (I still don't understand the answer myself.)

The '!-label' is a special phenomenon that appears in the summaries of fanfictions (read: verbal diarrhoea). It can be attached to a story or specific character.

The '!-label' has the purpose to replace an actual summary with actual sentences and actual sense in it.

If you want to use the '!-label' correctly, you just have to sum A) the atmosphere of the story or B) the behaviour of one character up in one word. Then, you take this word, connect it with an exclamation mark and add a '-fic' or the name of the character.

As confusing as it sounds, as simple is it. Here are a few examples:

Dark!fic: A story in which at least one main character dies. Preferably because of an other main character.

Crack!fic: A story without any sense at all. (see Abbreviations: 'Crack')

Death!fic: Someone dies. Period.

OMGWTFIDEKtrololo!fic: The impression you get of most stories that use the '!-label'. (I can't believe I'm actually stooping this low. That's mean even by my standards.)

Dark!Gwen: Gwen happily runs around and kills everyone.

Fem(ale)!Uther: Sorry, I'm too busy throwing up to continue writing right now.

OOC!Morgana: Morgana doesn't smirk and makes an overall sane impression in a story that is set after Series Three.

Melancholic!Gwaine: Gwaine does an alcohol withdrawal treatment.

Oblivious!Merlin: Merlin still doesn't realise that everyone already knows about the magic.

Evil!Butterfly: Self-explanatory Evil Dude.

(Observant!Arthur: Now this is just ridiculous. Let's take a different example.)

Gullible-And-Slightly-Dense!Arthur: Pretty much the Arthur from the show.

The words you choose to describe can be anything. The only important rule is that characters can have as many '!-labels' as you like, but stories for some (stupid) reason only one. (Don't ask why, I've got no idea.)

You see, my dear reader? It's simple. So if you – let's say – write a 'Tragedy'-story (see Genres: 'Tragedy') in which a female, deranged and for some reason Mexican looking Uther finds out about Merlin's magic and executes him, you can use one or several of these '!-labels':

Fem!Deranged!Mexican!Dark!Uther

Why-On-Earth-Doesn't-He-Just-Run-Away!Stupid!Merlin

Doesn't-Even-Appear!Arthur

Death!fic, Dark!fic, Magic-Reveal-Gone-Awry!fic, Sh*t-I-Actually-Killed-Merlin!fic

All clear now? No? Pity, because that's all you're going to get about this topic.

(I'm such a hypocrite. But it's all in the name of satire!)